Directive (EU) 2025/2647 Amending the ADR Framework for Consumer Disputes
On 30 December 2025, Directive (EU) 2025/2647 amending Directive 2013/11/EU on alternative dispute resolution for consumer disputes and amending Directives (EU) 2015/2302, (EU) 2019/2161 and (EU) 2020/1828 following the discontinuation of the European Online Dispute Resolution Platform has been published on the Official Journal of the European Union.
Directive (EU) 2025/2647 introduces important changes to the EU framework on consumer alternative dispute resolution (ADR), with implications that go beyond consumer law and are of clear relevance for private international law. While maintaining the voluntary and out-of-court nature of ADR, Directive (EU) 2025/2647 strengthens its role in cross-border consumer disputes and extends its scope to situations involving traders established in third countries, using connecting factors closely aligned with the Rome I and the Brussels I bis Regulations.
First, Directive (EU) 2025/2647 amends Directive 2013/11/EU with the aim of increasing the effectiveness, accessibility and cross-border reach of ADR procedures within the internal market. It responds to the findings of several Commission reports and evaluations, which highlighted persistent obstacles to the uptake of ADR, including low awareness among consumers and traders, uneven coverage across Member States and specific difficulties affecting cross-border disputes, such as language barriers and uncertainty regarding the applicable law. These challenges are compounded in an increasingly digital marketplace, where consumer transactions frequently involve traders established outside the Union.
Against this background, Article 1 of Directive (EU) 2025/2647 significantly reshapes the scope of consumer ADR by clarifying that the Directive applies to procedures for the out-of-court resolution of domestic disputes, cross-border disputes and third-country trader disputes between a consumer resident in the Union and a trader, through the intervention of an ADR entity that proposes or imposes a solution or facilitates an amicable settlement.
The Directive thus covers disputes arising from sales or service contracts, including contracts for the supply of digital content or digital services, where the consumer pays or undertakes to pay a price, as well as disputes relating to contractual obligations stemming from the pre-contractual phase. Within this broadened framework, the extension of ADR procedures to disputes involving third-country traders that direct their activities towards one or more Member States stands out as a particularly significant development.
The notion of “directing activities” is expressly linked to Article 6(1)(b) of the Rome I Regulation and Article 17(1)(c) of the Brussels I bis Regulation, thereby relying on well-established private international law connecting factors. By distinguishing between domestic disputes, cross-border disputes and third-country trader disputes on the basis of the consumer’s residence and the trader’s place of establishment, the Directive reinforces legal coherence across EU instruments and situates ADR as a complementary mechanism alongside judicial jurisdiction, particularly in consumer contracts with an international dimension.
Therefore, Directive 2013/11/EU is amended also in its material scope. ADR procedures cover disputes relating not only to the performance of contractual obligations, but also to pre-contractual practices, including misleading advertising and failures to provide mandatory information. Moreover, disputes concerning digital content and digital services are explicitly included, reflecting the realities of contemporary consumer markets and the growing importance of e-commerce and digital platforms.
From a private international law perspective, particular attention is drawn to the provisions governing third-country trader disputes.
Article 5 of Directive 2013/11/EU is amended by providing that Member States may make access to ADR conditional on the parties’ agreement that the dispute be resolved on the basis of the law applicable in the Member State where the ADR entity is established and where the consumer resides. At the same time, the changed framework safeguards the consumer by ensuring that such an agreement does not deprive them of mandatory protections under the law of their habitual residence. These rules mirror familiar techniques of EU private international law, combining party autonomy with the protection of weaker parties.
Article 6 of Directive 2013/11/EU is amended requiring that natural persons in charge of ADR possess the necessary knowledge and skills in the field of alternative or judicial resolution of consumer disputes, as well as a general understanding of law and, when dealing with cross-border disputes, a general understanding of private international law.
In addition, Member States are required to provide assistance to consumers and traders in cross-border disputes, facilitating access to competent ADR entities and reducing procedural barriers.
Finally, Directive (EU) 2025/2647 amends several related consumer law instruments in order to align them with the revised ADR framework.
Directive (EU) 2015/2302 on package travel is updated to reinforce transparency obligations, requiring traders to inform consumers about available in-house complaint handling procedures and ADR mechanisms pursuant to Directive 2013/11/EU, as well as, where applicable, the ADR entity by which the trader is covered.
Directive (EU) 2019/2161 is amended to clarify the consumer’s right to submit a complaint to the competent centre of the European Consumer Centres Network, thereby strengthening institutional support for consumers, particularly in cross-border disputes.
Directive (EU) 2020/1828 on representative actions is adjusted by deleting point (44) in Annex I, ensuring consistency with the discontinuation of the European Online Dispute Resolution platform and with the updated consumer ADR system.
Directive (EU) 2025/2647 entered into force on 19 January 2026.
Member States shall adopt and publish the measures necessary to comply with Directive (EU) 2025/2647 by 20 March 2028.
Is it correct to understand that the notion of “directing activites” only applies to cases where the party other than the consumer is established in a non-Member State (Art. 2 lit. fa)?
Such a notion may be considered as settled, but nonetheless, it is impossible to assess by a consumer as “weak party”, in particular in the electronic market.
Thank you very much for your comment.
As regards your first point, my understanding is indeed that the express mobilisation of the notion of “directing activities” in the amended framework primarily concerns disputes involving traders established in third countries (cf. Article 2(fa) of Directive 2013/11/EU as amended). This reading is confirmed by Recital (3) of Directive (EU) 2025/2647, which explicitly frames the extension of the ADR system against the empirical background that a significant share of online consumer transactions in the Union involve third-country traders, and ties the criterion of “directing activities” to the established meanings developed under Rome I and Brussels I bis.
The Recital is also helpful in operational terms, as it recalls a non-exhaustive set of factual indicators (language, currency, top-level domain, local advertising, availability of apps in national stores, customer service, etc.) that may guide the assessment.
At the same time, I fully share your concern: even when thus specified, the notion remains extremely difficult for consumers, as weak parties, to assess (ex ante included), particularly in digital and platform-based markets. However, the amended ADR framework seems to tacitly shift the practical burden of that assessment away from the consumer, entrusting it instead to ADR entities (and, upstream, to Member States when defining access conditions). In this sense, ADR bodies are increasingly called upon to perform a function that resembles a jurisdictional or admissibility filter, rather than expecting the weak party to make a complex private international law assessment on its own.
From a broader perspective, this issue reflects a recurring pattern in EU law when engaging with third-country operators. Food for thought in view of the Recast of the Brussels I bis Regulation specifically as regards non-EU defendants?
A purely horizontal reading may be drawn with other instruments extending their reach beyond the Union, albeit in different regulatory contexts – most notably Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (AI Act), which subjects non-EU providers and deployers to EU rules whenever AI systems are placed on the EU market or their output is used within the Union. Although operating in a different regulatory field, the logic is comparable: EU protection mechanisms are triggered not by formal establishment, but by market orientation and effects within the Union: criteria whose sophistication risks outpacing their practical intelligibility for end users.
This finally suggests that, in the ADR context as well, the effectiveness of protection will depend less on the formal availability of such connecting factors and more on the accompanying duties of information, assistance and institutional support capable of translating them into something operational for consumers.